1. Technical Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to a content providing system in which contents are provided from a server to a client device.
2. Description of Related Art
A content providing system, configured to provide contents from a server to a client device which is registered in the server by a user, is widely used. In such a system, various types of current information such as news and weather information are provided intermittently (at regular or irregular intervals) to the client device as the contents.
Various types of devices such as a mobile phone, a personal computer, a network printer, and a facsimile device (supporting network communication) can be used as the client device in the content providing system. The contents are displayed on a display unit of the client device if the client device is the mobile phone or the personal computer, while the contents are printed on recording medium if the client device is the network printer or the facsimile device. The contents may be provided to the client device (e.g. the personal computer) in a form of an electronic mail.
If a user travels to a place different from a place where the user usually uses a regular client device (e.g., a printer or a facsimile device), the user is required to operate the regular client device to access the system and to change a destination of the contents so as to continue receiving the contents at the place where the user is staying during his/her travel. That is, the user is required to input a new address (e.g., an IP address or a phone number), at which the user is able to receive the contents at the place where the user is staying during his/her travel, to the server to change the destination of the contents.
Such a configuration of the content providing system has a drawback that the user needs to change the destination of contents back to the user's regular client device after the user returns from travel, which is very troublesome for the user.
In Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. HEI 5-328080 (hereafter referred to as JP HEI 5-328080), a facsimile device configured to have a transferring function is disclosed. By using the transferring function of a facsimile device which the user usually uses, the user is able to receive the contents on another facsimile device set as a transferring target to the facsimile device which the user usually uses. However, there is a problem that the facsimile device increases the load on a network and therefore increases the communication cost.